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Why your dental practice needs a Dental Genius™
Does
your practice have a coach? At The Profitable Dentist,
we often meet and work with many consultants and dental
experts. Most of the time, a practice management company
has one or two “top gun” experts who run the company and
speak at dental meetings. If you hire them, however,
they will often send a rookie or someone else who
clearly lacks the expertise of the consultant you heard
on-stage. Sometimes the end result may turn out okay,
but most often you end up feeling cheated - and
rightfully so.
Dental Genius™ is different. Meet expert coaches Penny
Reed Limoli and Angie Skinner. This dynamic duo knows
their stuff, with over fifteen years of experience in
the dental industry, and they give back to the dental
profession on a monthly basis by offering a free E-mail
newsletter on the best strategies in dental management
and marketing and by hosting free monthly TeleForums
(you can sign up for both by calling (1-888-241-1407).
Penny and Angie, co-founders of Dental Genius™, are
among the nation’s most effective dental business
consultants. How do they help dentists like you? Here
are some examples:
Want to produce more cosmetics? They’ve helped
dentists increase their cosmetic production by
$20,000 per month in a program they’ve developed
with Smile-Vision®.
Hygiene department need a boost?
Let Dental Genius™ show you how one hygienist can
produce $45,000 per month, consistently.
Need more
new patients? Dental Genius™ marketing options not
only help you get new patient callers, but also tell
you how many of your new patients responded to your
individual ads using their Expertrak system. This
allows Penny and Angie to help dentists and their
teams create measurable success in new patient
growth and continuously monitor and improve on
capturing as many callers as possible . . . and
converting them to new patients on your schedule.
Need better business systems? Penny or Angie will
come to your office and show you how to be more
organized, efficient and profitable.
Staff issues? With over 30 years of combined
management experience, Penny and Angie will share
their methods for hiring and effectively managing
your team.
At Dental Genius™, Penny and Angie accept a limited number of dental clients, ensuring that every client gets the customized, individual attention they need. Every practice and every person needs a coach to achieve maximum results in life! I’ve worked with Penny Reed Limoli personally for a number of years. She’s one of the best coaches out there, and takes a personal interest in all her clients. If your dental practice needs help, consider giving Dental Genius™ a call.
Driving Revenue in Your Dental Practice
It’s the fourth quarter. How’s business? Have you accomplished your practice goals this year? Hopefully, your answer is yes. If not, you’re probably a little disappointed with your rate of practice growth (or lack thereof). Want to change this trend? Here are three strategies that will make an incredible difference in your practice.
Strategy #1 – Drive more new patients into your practice. Attracting more new patients should be a very intentional and ongoing part of your business plan. How much time, effort and money are you investing to be sure that your practice is the practice of choice, where you welcome and cater to new patients?
First, you need to determine what is going on within your practice and what hidden marketing messages you may be sending right now. What makes your practice unique? Do you know? We ask this question to every dentist we meet, and not surprisingly, almost all of the answers are similar. Here are some of the most common examples: “Our practice is friendly,” “We focus on cosmetic procedures,” and “We have a state-of-the art office.” Your prospective patients are looking for something more concrete. You should know what makes you different or special... and have some facts to back it up. Use qualified phrases such as “We have served over 6,000 members of our community in our office,” or “Dr. Smith performs over 200 dental implants each year.” Other good examples of marketing messages are “Same-day emergencies seen” or “Evening and Saturday appointments available.
”Next, everything you do needs to convey that new patients are welcome. While this may seem like a pretty obvious statement, this approach is one of the most overlooked areas in dental marketing. For example, over the past year we have been conducting new patient mystery shopping calls for dental clients across the country, and we’ve seen that many offices are confused about the true purpose of answering the phone. The purpose of answering the phone isn’t to try to pre-judge what a patient wants, needs or can afford; it’s to make them feel that they have called the right place and to find them the right appointment on your schedule.
It’s as simple as asking the caller’s name, finding out how you and your dental team can help them and locating the appropriate appointment time for the procedure. GTA – Get The Appointment – that is the goal. That phone call from someone inquiring about minimum payments or insurance could be your next $20,000 case. You never know. So, ensure that your administrative team is trained and poised to get the appointment for every single call.
Starting an advertising venture without properly training your team to handle new patients when they call is basically a waste of money. Once the new patient telephone training issue has been addressed and is being regularly monitored with mystery shoppers, you are ready to begin sending your marketing messages to prospective new patients.
We are often asked what marketing methods are most effective. Without a doubt, direct mail marketing brings in more new patients than any other external marketing avenue. The key to direct mail advertising is repetition (mailing to the same homes multiple times) and making a specific offer to the prospective patient. Each prospective new patient needs to have a reason to pick up the phone and call you. Also, the offer must have a deadline or the mailing piece will be set aside for another day . . . and then promptly forgotten.
Strategy #2 – Get your existing patients to schedule. When we go into a prospect’s office, we are amazed at how much dentistry walks out the door every day without scheduling. Usually, there are no “hand-offs” to be seen.
A hand-off is when a team member verbally conveys important information about the patient’s wants to the doctor or other team member. For example, the hygienist should verbally explain to the doctor what problem the patient is experiencing. Then, after making a diagnosis and recommending a treatment plan, the doctor should make a note in the chart and also verbally hand-off the next step in treatment to the clinical team member. The clinical team member should then walk with the patient to the administrative team and tell that person what the patient needs and when it should be scheduled, verifying that information with the patient. Unfortunately, we often see patients just wandering to the front desk, without an idea of what they need next or how important it is – and no recare appointment is put on the schedule.
What are other proactive steps you can take to drive more business from your existing patient base? One is to work your charts. Every patient in your files who has had a comprehensive exam should have their next appointment scheduled; raise your standards and make this an active goal. Also, be sure to pre-appoint your hygiene patients for maximum patient retention.
Strategy #3 – Offer more elective or attractive treatment options to your patients. We live in a very “visual” world. At any time you can turn on the television and see someone who has had a make-over, cosmetic surgery or some sort of weight loss success. The sad part is that most offices don’t take advantage of the visual tools they have in the office. Almost every general practice we work with has an intra-oral camera, but very few of them were using the camera consistently before they became our coaching clients. The excuse in most cases is that “they don’t remember to use it.” Why struggle trying to explain or convince a patient about something that is wrong in their mouth when you can show them instead? Most patients don’t know or understand much about dentistry until they see and “own” their condition. A patient will not get their dentistry done to make you happy. They ultimately have to have a reason to do it for themselves.
Let’s go beyond bread-and-butter dentistry and look at the cosmetic component. We have helped many dental offices fully utilize case presentation tools such as Smile-Vision’s digital imaging, so patients can see what they might look like with a perfect smile. It’s powerful stuff! You don’t have to be a master photographer to use this system and it isn’t a hard-sell. We’ve found that once a patient can actually see what they would look like with an “ideal” smile, there is little convincing that has to take place. The biggest hurdle we help dental teams overcome is implementing the imaging process into their day-to-day practice operations.
Remember, marketing isn’t defined as the advertising efforts you take on in your practice. Marketing is about how you communicate and how you make your patients and prospects feel. Now you are ready to put these three great strategies in place to make your practice a more efficient revenue-producing machine. Want to learn more about growing your practice? Call Dental Genius™ at
888-241-1407 to ask for the “free articles” titled Marketing for the Dental Profession: Myths, Magic and Methods and schedule a complimentary coaching call with either Penny Reed Limoli or Angie Skinner.
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